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The Latest Breaking News from Olivia Laing

Friday essay: in an uncertain world, ‘green relief’ offers respite, healing and beauty

Have you ever sat with a cup of tea at the end of a weeding session, with a feeling close to happiness? Or returned from the local garden centre with a bag of potting mix and some plants – and soon the sight of your newly planted herbs or flowers…

The Conversation

Between the lines: what do White Lotus characters’ book choices tell us?

Season three offers up clues to characters’ psyches – or perhaps their fates – by showing us their holiday reads

The Guardian - UK

On my radar: Alison Goldfrapp’s cultural highlights

The electropop star on her favourite quirky bookshop, Marmite and cheese pastries and the second series of Severance

The Guardian - UK

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Best non-fiction books of 2024: True crime, fandom and the dangers of nostalgia

THE LIST: From investigations into digital algorithms and the impact of smartphones to a history of Victoria’s Secret, there’s something for everyone in Katie Rosseinsky’s edit of 2024’s best non-fiction

The Independent UK

‘Are you good in bed?’ Jilly Cooper on horses, lefties and which fictional character she would like to sleep with

As her much-loved story Rivals is turned into a lavish Disney+ production, the author answers questions from Observer readers and famous fans including David Tennant, Caitlin Moran and Gillian Anderson

The Guardian - UK

Strange Relations: Masculinity, Sexuality and Art in Mid-Century America by Ralf Webb review – sex and the literary lions

A concise study of Tennessee Williams, John Cheever, Carson McCullers and James Baldwin, and how their sexuality informed their work, veers between lecture-hall lit crit and novelistic immediacy

The Guardian - UK

Friday essay: ‘like being hungry’ – loneliness afflicts nearly 1 in 3 Australians. It can be devastating, but can spark creativity or change

My sharpest experience of loneliness was during the New Year period when I turned 22. Following the breakdown of a youthful and doomed marriage, I had landed in a new country, in a city, Wellington, where the only people I had contact with were at the job I’d just started.…

The Conversation

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Olivia Laing on the politics of gardens: ‘A garden is a rebel state’

When Olivia Laing began restoring a walled garden in Suffolk, the writer found that green spaces can also be sites of beauty, refuge and radical politics. They speak to Lucy Jones about their new book, ‘The Garden Against Time’

The Independent UK

'They all have hidden relationships with colonialism and enclosure': Olivia Laing's new book considers the garden

Olivia Laing's new book, 'The Garden Against Time', considers the social, political and cultural contexts of a garden

Wallpaper

Thrill me, hide me, restore me: what can we learn about artists from their gardens?

From the spectacular Tarot Garden Niki de Saint Phalle built in Tuscany to Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture oasis in St Ives, artists’ green spaces are about so much more than plants and pruning

The Guardian - UK

The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing review – earthly paradise

A vivid account of bringing a garden back to life underlines the importance of outdoor space for all

The Guardian - UK

The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing review – an Eden project of her own

While a cast of literary heavyweights grace Laing’s account of her garden restoration, the real joys lie in her detailed description of the pruning and the planting and the soothing effect on her state of mind

The Guardian - UK

The best non-fiction books to read in 2024

From candid memoirs to provocative essay collections, 2024’s forthcoming non-fiction is enticing. Jessie Thompson shares our guide to what you need on your reading pile

The Independent UK

'I grew up on an estate — the class prejudice in Saltburn repelled me'

Emerald Fennell’s new film is a sign that we are in desperate need of new voices, says Alexandra Jones

Evening Standard

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The Conversation

Friday essay: how women writers helped me find my voice after divorce

When my 25-year marriage broke down in 2017, I did what I always do in my life, especially in times of crisis. I turned to books. Specifically, to books by women.

The Guardian - UK

‘A painful absence all of the time’: the best descriptions of loneliness in literature

The last word, our series about emotions in books, focuses on depictions of isolation this month, from a memoir of grief to Sam Selvon’s Windrush chronicle

The Guardian - UK

Top 10 books about solitary living

Finding your way without the social template of romantic love is a tough challenge, but writers from Deborah Levy to Hanya Yanagihara offer clues to how it can be done

The Guardian - UK

Nothing Ever Just Disappears review – fascinating journeys into LGBTQ+ courage

Diarmuid Hester’s travelogue celebrates the history of queer spaces in 20th century subculture, from Josephine Baker’s Paris to EM Forster’s Cambridge

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The Guardian - UK

In the trees with 90s ecowarriors: Olivia Laing on Janine Wiedel’s protest photos

The bestselling author, who joined the protest camp documented in the photographer’s new book, argues its spirit is more vital than ever

The Guardian - UK

The Diary of Virginia Woolf review – a book for the ages

Woolf’s epic and unmatchable record of her life, times and writing process

The Guardian - UK

Ronald Blythe at 100: ‘A watchful, curious and gratefully amazed vision of life’

A life rooted in Suffolk has given the great nature writer Ronald Blythe a deep love of the countryside

The Guardian - UK

‘Most music comes from really abject origins’: Jarvis Cocker interviewed by Olivia Laing

The pop pioneer talks to the author about his creative education via nightclubs and the dole, his teenage masterplan and the enduring inspiration of the everyday

The Guardian - UK

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in April

Women’s prize judge Lorraine Candy, journalist Sarah Shaffi and Guardian readers Kate and Saffron discuss the titles they’ve read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

The Guardian - UK

March design news: celebrating council houses and the vulva spaceship

Reviving great 80s artists, a history of queer spaces and bringing new life to a stately home

The Guardian - UK

Olivia Laing: ‘I’m sorry, but Jane Eyre is a horrendous little hysteric’

The British writer on discovering Barthes, channelling Burroughs and appreciating the talents of Patricia Highsmith’s Mr Ripley

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